Just like as if someone had flicked a switch, spring has arrived in the Limousin. The birds are singing, butterflies have appeared, and great flocks of migrating birds have been passing over.

I set off for a recovery ride through the local lanes wearing legwarmers, and a lightweight jacket. Had to stop after about 10 minutes to take my gloves off, it was that warm!!! As I bowled along in the early spring sunshine on deserted roads I felt fantastic. Anyway, I stuck to the game plan, and only did a couple of hours easy riding. When I got back, I sat on the patio and sunbathed while I watched the grass grow. 🙂

Let myself go a bit towards the end of last season. Actually, bit of self-denial there, I should say, over the last two years, since I stopped racing. I’m now 10lbs over my racing weight. Yes, I know, some of you lard buckets would love to be just 10lb too heavy. Anyway, enough, I’ve packed myself off on a training camp in France, the Limousin to be exact. I plan on getting some miles in ready for my assault on the South Downs Way in May.

Been here a week now, and the weather has been awful. Some days it has rained all day. On thursday I did two and a half hours during which I get soaked and dried out twice! The rain stopped yesterday, but it was very very cold. I got out early, on tired legs, and after half an hour I was so cold and tired I wanted to call it a day, but then I found a nice track through a forest, the sun came out, I ate half a chewy bar, and my spirits lifted. Three hour later I was sat on the patio in the early afternoon sun, enjoying a well earned cup of tea. 🙂

I was gonna call this post ‘Return of the Magnificent Seven’, as it was a year ago that I wrote ‘The Magnificent Seven‘, and here we were again, at Pearce Cycles winter downhill series round two, seven desperados in a rough mix of vehicles ferrying downhill riders to the top of Bringewood downhill course. You may recall how I talked about the team (that’s us) operating a slick service with no rider having to wait more than a couple of minutes. Well, so it was again, but blokes being blokes, this time there was a challenge…I was driving the Landrover Disco’, with bespoke trailer capable of carrying 16 riders. The beauty of this rig is that the riders load the trailer from both ends themselves, and the Disco covers the ground fast. Let the Disco be known as the hare.

Gary was driving the big John Deere tractor with the rootcrop trailer. The beauty of this rig is that the tractor has air-con, CD player, CB radio, etc. But, although the trailer can carry 25 riders at a time, it can only be loaded from the back, and only when backed up to a suitable bank, and she’s a bit slower. Let the John Deere be known as the tortoise.

Gary and I had often joked about how many runs we had done, and I had often wondered which was the best uplift tool. So putting rider preference aside, plus the fact that any fool (me) can drive a Disco, but it takes skill to drive a big tractor, I challenged Gary to see who could carry the most riders in a day, whilst being safe, and sticking within the 15mph forest speed limit when loaded.

All went well, and by lunchtime I has 7 runs under my belt two up on Gary. The maths – hare 7*16=112 v tortoise 5*25=125. I was a little down, but I reckoned that the bacon butties would be calling to Gary from Janet’s catering van, while I had sarnies onboard.

As the afternoon wore on it wasn’t long before I was in a position to move up on Gary again, but each time I tried to get ahead I was blocked, not in an obvious way, just subtley blocked. It was funny how I seemed to meet tractors coming in the opposite direction at awkward places, forcing me to back up and lose time. Strange how there was never quite enough room to get through in the trailer loading area, forcing me to wait. I noticed Gary smiling a lot, and talking on his CB radio. I noticed Grubb one of the other drivers on his CB a lot, laughing!

By the end of the day I had 12 runs making 192 riders uplifted. Gary has 10 runs with 250 riders carried to the top. I was beaten, the tortoise had beaten the hare. So not the Magnificent Seven then, more like the Magnificent 6 v 1 🙂

The cold bright frosty weather was replaced with rain that didn’t stop all day.
The temperature rose, and the ground thawed. Fears that the event would have to be cancelled gone. Arriving at the Larkhill military base is an experience in itself. You may not approach with headlights on, you will park up, and you will go into the guard house, past the armed soldiers, where you will be checked in. At least the van should be safe. 🙂

There were just over twenty riders, split into two groups, I opted for the easier group, as did Legzakimbo (the only woman there), and we headed off toward the flat grass test area. I never knew riding around a flat scrubland area could be so hard, need so much skill, and be so much fun. After 5 laps warm up we had all worked up a good sweat, and shown Wyn our skills… Continue reading →

Last weekend I got the chance to test the new 06 FSR Stumpjumper. This is the third incarnation of the current FSR, and it has ‘brain fade’ (WTF?). Anyways, first thing is that there’s no knob on the shock to twiddle when you’re riding. In 04 we had a three position triad shock, with lockout, pro-pedal, or fully active to choose from. In 05 Spesh spoiled us with the Septune seven position shock, then, having hooked us on knob twiddlin’ on the fly they take it away! Having set the right pressure for my weight, I set the brain to a middlin’ setting, and left it at that.

The forks 130mm travel, I wound them all the way up, then back a bit, and headed out for a spin. Within no time at all I’d worked up a good sweat, and was thinkin it was a warm day. Carla, riding her trusty old Stumpy HT informed me that I was making it look like hard work, and that I had the look of one of them fat overbiked dudes that we sometimes see, just needed a half-goatee, some knee guards, and daft baggies to complete the look. Wha? I thought I’d show her when we got to some downhill swoopy off-road type stuff, and I did, but not that much. We did our usual rolling side by side test on the way home, and the FSR was seriously slow innit.

Next day I removed the ‘Adrenaline’ tyres, and replaced them with some fave fast tyres. I fitted a ‘rockster’ on the front, and a ‘roll-x’, on the rear. What a difference! The bike came to life, and whooshing like a really whooshy thing I whooshed all around Hopton Woods. Fast on the flat? check. Climbs well? check. Descends well? check. The bike was a treat to ride uphill, downhill, technical, easy, comfy standing and sitting. I couldn’t decide if the front end felt a little light, giving a tendancy to oversteer, but it never did, and I forgot about it anyway, even going fast over frozen technical rooty ‘i think I’m gonna bin it type stuff’.

The XT brakes were great, I’ve always liked them. The SRAM shifters gave light precise shifting, although it did take a while to get used to the push-push lever action, and I did make a couple of shifts by mistake when I caught my thumb on the forward shifter. I normally like to move my shifters a long way in on the bars. Don’t know why I didn’t do that.

As I rode back into the car park, with two and a half hours riding done, I remembered the rear shock thingy, hadn’t thought about it all ride, hadn’t messed with it, adusted it, nothing. I think that’s just how a shock should be.

So is it better than last year’s FSR? Well, no, not radically, but the fact that the rear shock and brain were so good I forgot about them says that it is. It meant that I didn’t have to think ahead, didn’t have to firm the shock up for this climb, or soften it for this rooty section, and so on, I just rode the bike, and had fun.

My idea of a good trail ride is a small but well formed group of riders flowing along the trails, riding as one, in a brisk but unhurried manner, mostly unseen as they glide by, just there in the moment, and then gone… Continue reading →

I waited all last year to have a go on Pearce Cycles Enduro test bike, but it never happened, it must have been the most popular test bike ever. In fact, the only time I saw it back in the shop was when it came in for repair, and even then it was already booked out again. So when I had the chance of being the very first person to test the 06 bike, I took it.

The look of the 05 Enduro was radically different from previous years, and aimed at a different rider group. The 05 Enduro was now more of a freeride bike, and cross-country fans of the old style enduro were pointed toward the new Stumpjumper FSR. Travel front and rear had been incresed to 6 inches. The fox forks had a bolt through axle, while the beefier frame had the shock mounted much lower in the frame. It looked closer to a downhill bike than a cross-country machine. The main differences between the 05 and 06 models are the shock, which now has a ‘pro-pedal’ setting, the brakes, which are now Avid Juicys, and the gears, which are now Sram. As far as I know the chasis stays the same. Oh, and where the 05 test bike was a lovely bright yellow colour the 06 test bike is the most disgusting shitty brown colour imagineable.

Jumping onboard for a quick test of sag/suspension settings the bike felt good, it doesn’t show its 35lb weight. The Sram shifters worked pretty much like Shimano (apart from the levers being in different), and the Avids felt in need of bedding in. So, all set, riding gear on, and away.

I rode around Kinver, and the Million. After two hours of mixed singletrack, bridleway, lanes, and cheeky trails, my impression was…..
This is a great bike once the trail points downhill, even only slightly downhill, you pick up speed really fast, and the bike comes to life. It’s so easy to ride fast, and so well behaved. Places I normally have to ride with care, I just floated through. Even although the head angle is a lot slacker than my cross-country bike the Enduro was still accurate. But but but but but. I could go so fast so easily downhill that riding on the falt, or uphill felt rather dull. Try to hustle this bike along, and it’s hard work. Not to say that this bike can’t climb, it can, in fact riding up hill was very easy, and you could ride stuff sat down without thinking that you would have to ‘finesse’ on an XC HT. It’s just that you’d be going slower. Like wise on the flat, you float and flow along, but not in a hurry.

If you’re a downhiller, or extreme freeriding nutter, who can’t always get to uplift sessions, or who doesn’t want to ride where the uplift is, then this is the bike for you. It’s easy enough to ride to the top, and a blast to ride back down (which is why you’ll be doing it right?). Trouble is, you’ll end up going faster and faster, searching out even more radical terrain to satisfy your adrenalin addiction. Yeah, you’ll probably end up going to the Alps, or Spain where you’ll be able to ride downhill for an hour or more over incredibly technical terrain, and who wants to do that eh?

This year rememberance day has been a bit special as it’s the 60th anniversary of the end of WW2. There’s been some great stuff of TV showing some of the old soldiers alive today. Some of the tales they tell are just incredible.

Here’s my favourite war poem…

If I should die, think only this of me;
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke. 1887–1915

Yep, it’s true, I’ve married a dirty woman who has a lot to learn. It’s gonna be a rocky road for her, but she enjoys it. From never having ridden a motorbike before, to riding 70miles off-road in a day in the space of four rides. From shaking with fear to thinking about entering her first enduro, she’s got an entry form for the ‘Fast Eddie Winter Series’. Now hold on there wife. I know you like nothin better than gettin’ dirty with the boys, but there’s a lot to learn.

Ain’t never bin married before. Didn’t want to rush into it!!!